


I'll have you know I make a fantastic Llama, Mr. Pickering

by putyourpantson



Category: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - Ransom Riggs
Genre: Author Knows Nothing about Ska, Author Regrets Some Things, F/M, Hugh and Fiona are meme kings, I know Nothing of Anything, M/M, Ricky wears lipstick no I don't take criticism, Ricky's a sassy lil shit and I love him, Ricky's good at reading ppl, Usage of the affectionate nickname of "Special Ed", author attempts humor, some probably bad flirting, thanks to discord server for makin' me write this asdljf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:53:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27949355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/putyourpantson/pseuds/putyourpantson
Summary: this is titled "Millard and Ricky meet. Tis a bit gay. The author only has a super vague and not at all true vision of what Ska is" in my google drive pls just take this, I'm hopefully doing God's work here
Relationships: Hugh Apiston/Fiona Frauenfeld, Ricky & the kids, Ricky Pickering & Jacob Portman, Ricky Pickering/Millard Nullings
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	I'll have you know I make a fantastic Llama, Mr. Pickering

**Author's Note:**

> Here u go discored B)

Now, hear him out. Ricky knew that waiting until your friend had, like, come back from the dead and a Europe was always not a  _ great _ idea, but he wanted to see how Jacob was doing.

Given, he wasn’t sure if anything would happen when he knocked, but the door swung open and Jacob stood in the doorway, more surprise than anger on his face.

“Ricky?”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t sound too surprised,” Ricky muttered. “Listen, Special Ed, can I come in?”

“Uh.” Jacob looks behind him, and Ricky’s sure that it’s Mrs. Portman until a different woman’s voice says something he can’t hear, and Jacob whispers something back. “I-um. It’s...well…”

“It’s fine,” Ricky won’t say he expected this, but he really did expect this. “I get it. See you round, Ja-”

“No, no!” Jacob’s eyes go wide. “I, um. Come in?” Jacob opens the door to the house and Ricky steps cautiously in.

An entire  _ circus of an orphanage _ is inside. A girl with a tiny tiara and giant metal boots stands in the front, another with a pink and frilly dress next to her. Some girl with leaves and forest shit in her hair’s sittin next to a boy with steampunk goggles. It takes him a moment, looking over the kids, (does that one have blood on his hands? Is that a metaphor for something?) until he looks at Jacob.

“What the fuck.”

Jacob explains to Ricky about everything.

He’s some superpower boy who can see monsters, he fell in love with his grandfather’s ex, which seems weird until you look closer and then it’s super weird, everyone’s fine, and Ricky’s sitting there looking around at everyone.

“Well okay, what the hell,” he grumbles. He may as well believe this, it’s not like he has anything better to do. “Hey. I’m Ricky Pickering. Who the fuck-  
“Language, Mr. Pickering.” The old lady says it, and Ricky wasn’t born with a disregard for authority figures for nothing.

“Right, right. Whomst the fuck are all of y’all?” He hears someone in the back giggle. He doesn’t press it, but he smiles in the general direction of the small noise.

So they introduce themselves to him. Jacob’s Girlfriend has fire, Frilly Girl’s got a second fuckin  _ mouth, _ the next (he only remembered his name cause it was weird,) Enoch could make puppet people? Sort of?

Either way, it was like a little parade of strange people that Ricky wasn’t entirely sure weren’t just , and soon the thin air spoke. “I’m Millard, and well, as you can see-”

“I can’t.” Scattered giggles from the room, Ricky grins, and he can  _ hear _ the empty space that is, in fact, Millard chuckle a little too. 

“Exactly. I’m invisible, as you can’t see.” Ricky smiles at Millard, in the way he used to smile at the guys and gals he seduced in high school, and you can  _ hear _ Millard blush and become flustered.

No one thinks anything of it, but Jacob’s normally confused face (it was why Ricky named him Special Ed: he never looked like he really knew what was going on,) looks even more baffled.

Ah, well. He’ll be around a lot more to confuse him.

Ricky was over the next day as well, and only had to knock once before a hoodie swung open the door to an otherwise empty house.

“Hey, Millard,” Ricky smiles at Millard again. “Where is everyone?”

Millard sighs. “They’re at school today, unfortunately.”

“No shit?” Ricky tries to remember what day it is. Is it really Monday? Shit. Well, maybe he can get notes from one of his newer friends. “Huh. Well, then why are you still here?”

“Well, I can’t very well  _ go _ to school, can I?” Millard sighs. “It’d be suspicious if I went and raised my hand to answer a question, hmm?”

Ricky lets that one marinate before muttering out a ‘yeah, yeah.’

There’s an awkward, electric silence, and Ricky can practically  _ feel _ Millard’s nerves as he stands there.

“So,” Millard’s voice is kind of forced and strangled. “Er. What’re you doing out here? Shouldn’t you be at school?” Ricky snorts. 

“Yeah, I guess I should…” But Ricky doesn’t want to. He wants to hang out with this boy even though he doesn’t even truly know if  _ Millard _ would want to. It’s kind of hard to read him without looking at his face, but Ricky’s become a pro at reading people. “Unless you wanna ditch with me today?” Millard is silent for a moment.

“Ditch? What do you mean, ditch?”

“Cut class, skip class, all that,” Ricky says, overly casual, like the invisible boy is a scared fish that might flee at one wrong step.

“I-with you?” Ah, there it is. There’s the unsure little voice. Ricky knows that nine times out of ten, that means that they’re scared of being alone with him. But with Millard...it definitely means a- “Yes, I, um. I’ll get my coat.”

“Aren’t you wearing one?” Ricky smiles at him again, already pulling out his keys for his truck again. He pretends he doesn’t hear Millard silently cursing Ricky as he does.

Millard climbs into his car, and they’re off.

He doesn’t really know where to take them, but Millard asks to go to a fast food place nearby, and hell, who is Ricky to say no? So he rolls up to McDonalds, gets four burgers, pays at the window, and parks in the parking lot. He hands two to Millard, and starts to open up his own.

“You don’t mind if I play some music, do ya?” Ricky knows that the kids have a hard time with how unnecessarily bright and loud the modern world is, so when Millard says yes, a goofy smile comes onto his face involuntarily. He doesn’t know which CD he picks out, but he does know that it’s something ska and his fingers are trembling. Millard’s hands pause on his food as he listens. 

After the first song fades out, Millard speaks again. “That was rather good! Can you play anoth-oh, sorry, right, it already plays another one.”

Ricky looks at Millard and he can’t help the smile that plays across his face like a gentle flame. “You’re getting to be a fan?”

“Perhaps?” Millard’s voice seems more confused than Ricky’s emotions, or even Special Ed. “It seems older than what most things are from here, and I, well…”

“Yeah, ska started in the late 50’s and all that,” Ricky says casually. “Maybe it’s closer to your time and all that.”

“Maybe,” Millard muses, and Ricky pretends he can’t see the food in his mouth. “Could we listen to some more?” Ricky decides to have a little fun.

“Whatever you want, Mill.” He beams, and he can practically feel Millard blushing again.

“Mister Nullings,” Miss Peregrine says once he gets home at five, after being carefully walked to the door by Ricky, “where were you today?”

“I was, uhm,” he ignores how everyone’s staring at him. “I was out. Sorry I didn’t tell you Miss P-”

“Where were you out?” Jacob’s got a confused look on his face as Miss P questions him some more. No real point in lying, Millard supposes.

“I was at McDonalds,” Millard let his statement baffle Miss Peregrine for a second before continuing. “It’s a fast food restaurant, and all, it’s really quite fascinating-”

“I understand what McDonalds is, Millard.” Hugh lets out a small giggle. “What I don’t understand is how you got served when you were very obviously alone.”

“I wasn’t,” Millard replies. The other children freeze, and Horace wears an ‘aha!’ face while Enoch scrunches up his nose. “I was with Ricky.”

Miss Peregrine’s face doesn’t change while everyone else’s behind her does. Emma’s mouth purses, but Hugh and Fiona share ridiculously huge smiles as they wiggle their eyebrows at Millard. It’s rather comedic, how four words could change everyone behind Miss P’s faces.

“I see.” Miss P doesn’t say anything more and moves on. 

Ricky swings by again the next day, right on time to miss the first period and thus miss the other kids as they leave for school. Millard’s wearing a polo as he opens the door, and Ricky decides to share his surprise with him.

“Do I really have to wear this?” Millard groans, and Ricky grins at him again.

“Well, do you really want to go to school or not?”

Millard doesn’t question his leadership anymore.

“This is my friend, Mill D. Lard, he’s new to school here and I thought I’d show him the ropes,” Ricky says as he introduces Millard to his period two Algebra II. “He really likes Llamas.”

Indeed, Millard was in an old, beat-up, (though freshly cleaned, thank God), mascot Llama costume. The teacher didn’t question it and let him sit next to Ricky. 

_ Thank God for public school _ , Ricky thought as Millard answered every question and held his hands in fists every time someone asked for ‘Mr. Lard’. Thank God no one gave enough of a shit to actually be angry that Millard refused to remove the stupid fucking costume.

“What’d you think?” Ricky asked Millard as they waited in the line at the drive-through at Burger King. “Was it all you ever wished for in schoolin’?”  
“More than that,” Millard chuckled. “I never thought I’d have so much fun in a Llama costume.”

“You always can as long as you know the right people,” Ricky ignores Millard’s playful swat and begins his order for the two of them. “Right so, we’ll have…”

It takes a week or two of school for Millard to come home one Friday afternoon, humming and smiling after Ricky drops him off.

No one questions it or thinks anything’s odd until Millard takes off his Llama mask and black lipstick stains are made very visible on his face. Jacob gags and Hugh chokes out a laugh as Enoch groans.

“Gross,” someone mutters and there’s a few dissenters around.

“Hmm, maybe.” Millard doesn’t really respond to them. “Have you ever heard of ska music?”

And thus, Ricky became a much more permanent fixture in the children’s lives.


End file.
